Your Consciousness is a Mirror

Buddha says: Your innermost core is simply empty. It has never
done anything. It cannot do. It is a witness, by its very nature.
Watch it. Find out whether what he says is true or not. Try it in
your life. You were a child, now you are no longer a child; then you
were a young man, now you are no longer young; now you have become
old; the childhood body has gone, the childhood mind has
disappeared. Then you had another body in your youth - that has
gone. The vigor, the vitality, the youth, the beauty - everything
has disappeared. You had a different type of mind - too ambitious,
too desirous, too egoistic. Now all that is a story of the past. Now
death is coming; you can hear the sound of its coming closer every
day. You can feel that every day the distance is becoming smaller
and smaller. But watch one thing: you have remained the same. Your
innermost core has not changed a little bit, it has not changed at
all. When you were a child, it was the same consciousness watching
from behind. You were young; it was the same consciousness,
watching. Then you became old; it is the same consciousness.
It is as if consciousness is a mirror. A child stands before the
mirror, the mirror reflects the child; a young man stands before the
mirror, the mirror reflects the young man; an old man stands before
the mirror, the mirror reflects the old man - but the mirror is
neither child, nor young, nor old. And when all have gone there is
simply a mirror reflecting nothing, just being there.
Your consciousness is a mirror.
This metaphor of the mirror is tremendously meaningful. It will be
very helpful on the Way if you can understand it. The consciousness
is just standing behind, watching. It is a witness. Things come and
go... just like a movie. You sit in a moviehouse; on the screen many
things come and go. Sometimes you get identified too. Sometimes you
become identified with an actor. Maybe he is beautiful, powerful,
has a charm, a grace of personality, is impressive, has some
charisma: you get identified, you forget yourself. For a moment you
start thinking as if he is you. Sometimes it happens that there is a
very sad scene, and you start crying, Your eyes are wet... and there
is nothing on the screen - just light and shadow passing. And you
know it, but you have forgotten for a moment. If you remember it,
you will start laughing at yourself: "What are you doing? crying?
weeping?" But it happens when you read a novel too. At least there
is something on the screen. Reading a novel there is nothing - no
screen, no actors, nothing. Just in your own fantasy the novel goes
on and on and on. And suddenly sometimes you feel very happy, and
sometimes you feel very sad; the climate of the novel starts
possessing you.
This is exactly what is happening in life. Life is a great stage, a
great drama. And it is very complex - because you are the actor,
and you are the director, and you are the film, and you are the
screen, and you are the projector, and you are the audience too. Now
you are all layers: one part playing the role of an actor, another
part directing, another part functioning as a screen, another part
working as a projector. And behind it all is your real reality -
the witness who is just watching.
This watcher....
Once you start feeling its existence, once you start getting settled
with it, more and more in tune with it, then you will see what
Buddha means when he says consciousness is a mirror. The mirror is
never contaminated, it only appears to be. You can put a heap of
dung before a mirror; of course, it will reflect it. But still the
mirror is not contaminated, it is not polluted. It doesn't become
impure because a heap of manure or dung is reflected in it. It
remains still pure. Remove the dung and the mirror is there in all
its purity. Even when the dung was reflected the mirror was not
contaminated. So whatsoever is impure is really a reflection; it is
mirrored. And Buddha says: If you get cleansed of this dross, the
dirt of evil and passions, your conduct will be unimpeachable.
So the emphasis is not on conduct. The emphasis is on the
mirror-like purity of consciousness.